The European Parliament debates on the Creative Europe proposal

In order to boost the EU’s cultural and creative sectors, the European Commission wishes to promote European cinemas thanks to the Creative Europe proposal. However, the MPs considered that this proposal was not clear enough.

About the Creative Europe proposal

The Creative Europe programme would merge EU cultural programmes such as Culture, MEDIA 2007 and MEDIA Mundus in order to support the creative and cultural sectors with €1.8 billion. Under the proposal 2,500 European cinemas would receive support enabling them to ensure that at least 50% of the films they show are European. More than 5,500 books and other literary works would receive support for translation to allow readers to enjoy them in their mother tongue. And 300,000 artists and cultural professionals would receive funding to reach new audiences beyond their home countries.

Need for details

MEPs on the Parliament's culture committee broadly welcomed the plans when they discussed it on 26 April, but they also called for the text to be more specific. Italian Social-Democrat Silvia Costa, who is responsible for steering the proposal through Parliament, commented: "It is a good signal that education, research and culture should receive more founding and that the Commission sees the value of cultural and creative industries. But the text is vague and merging the different programmes creates more confusion than positive results. We should propose separate programmes for the cultural industries, the media industries and the sector between the two."

German Christian-Democrat Doris Pack, chairwoman of the culture committee, equally deplored the lack of details. "We have extensive and good experience from previous programmes that we can use," she said. "But we need more specific and detailed information about the budget of the programme."